I am back with another Wilton course at Bake-it-yourself. Since I already have the prerequisite certificate for Course 1, I can choose to take Course 2 or 3. Course 3 had a perfect class schedule for me! Weekends are my busiest days of the week due to my baking orders, and I prefer taking up classes on weekday mornings.
I went for this class with great anticipation as I was not really very familiar with covering cake with fondant and I have not tried doing gumpaste flowers.
DAY 1:
Here’s my course kit and I am so grateful that I didn’t buy much of the stuff out of impulse. Otherwise I would have duplicated items. The dusting pouch was particularly useful for me as I have been using the “budget” method with a bowl and spoon. Everything in this kit was quite new to me except for the rolling pin.
Nur was my instructor for Course 3 and she taught me some basics about fondant and gum paste, and the difference between both. For a short summary, gum paste hardens a lot better and is more effectively used for figurines or flowers. Fondant, on the other hand, does not really dry up completely especially in Singapore’s weather. It’s better used for covering cakes. You can even do 50-50 gum paste and fondant to create something that is in between.
This is the base for flowers and I was taught to use wholemeal raw spaghetti to support the topper. I still prefer using toothpick or skewers though.
And we had to cut ribbons out. I really love this colour which resembles Tiffany Blue! Some of my ribbons broke when I brought them home though ):
DAY 2
Day 2 was definitely more interesting as I get to work on 3d flowers like roses and calla lily! (FINALLY!)
These flowers look so complicated and it never occurred to me that it can be that easy just by following the simple steps from the course book.
The blue ribbons are supposed to look like the ribbons from a gift box and the tissue papers were used to hold the ribbons in place while it’s drying.
I feel that my flowers were a tad too thick hence the petals don’t look that convincing, it kinda resembles styrofoam roses. But it was my first try after all.
From Day 2 onwards, the other student resigned from the course so I had the whole class to myself. It was a little lonely but thinking from a positive side, it was like having a private 1-on-1 class with my instructor.
DAY 3:
Carnation flowers are one of my favourite to make! They’re quite easy to follow because of its natural messiness and I didn’t have to be very precise unlike rose and Chrysanthemum (the book called it the MUM flower).
The mum flower was the most complicated out of all because the stubborn petals just didn’t want to stay in place until the edible glue has set.
The daisy was one of the simplest to do but I didn’t really fancy it. And I didn’t expect myself to actually use it in my finale cake. But I did.
I also modified one of the ruffles technique and made it into a rose, which is actually a simpler version compared to the pink ones that I did.
My assignment was to complete 5 flowers of my own choice and cover the cake with fondant. I decided to do a lot more for my own existing orders as well! Learning from my previous mistake, I rolled the gumpaste into a thinner layer and the petals look way better this way. I also added a tint of yellow to make the pink less vibrant as I was going for the coral pink. Love how the flowers turned out!
And this dummy styrofoam cake is a really good investment if you are always making flowers like these. You can always reuse it again and again! And it’s only less than $10. I think it definitely made my job a lot easier.
I have always wanted to learn how to cover a cake with fondant. I tried it before but it wasn’t easy as I didn’t use the right technique before. I think the type of fondant really plays a huge part as well. Wilton brand gum paste and fondant are so much better, so is the price tag..
How is it better?
It’s more malleable and doesn’t break as easily. I even left the cake in room temperature (without aircon) for the entire night and it looks absolutely fine the next morning. I know it’s kinda gross to leave a cake outside for the more than 24 hours but I wasn’t going to eat this cake anyway since it was given to me a week ago.
The most challenging part of the process is to actually lift the whole piece of fondant onto the rolling pin as it feels like the entire thing is going to tear on me. Any breakage on the fondant and I will have to redo the entire piece again.
I’m quite happy with the cake as a first official try!
Day 4 (FINALE):
The most exciting part of the course was to assemble all the flowers on the cake!
Never thought that doing the dusting effect with a brush can make the flowers look so much prettier! If you look closely, you can also see that the ruffles border also have some pink shading, making it look more 3D than before.
A photo of my finale cake with my instructor, Nur!
